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Job Satisfaction Paper

Michelle Phinx, Byron Mobley, Fred Paige, Rogers Glover
PSY/428
Annie Fongheiser
University of Phoenix
February 9, 2013






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Job Satisfaction
Employee job satisfaction continues to drop yearly with the ever-changing state of
the economy. An employee continues to pursue careers or jobs that will provide
opportunities, monetary compensation, and job security. Best performing organizations
understands that employee job satisfaction is important and is linking its business goals to
employees job satisfaction goals. This paper will discuss job satisfaction, and how
organizational socialization has influenced the workplace and will provide examples of
its positive influence on job satisfaction.
Our nations unemployment situation has created an environment that employees
are staying on their jobs despite whether they have job satisfaction or not.
Industrial/organizational psychology has studied employee job satisfaction for years and
has applied all types of scientific measurements to the subject. According to Eagly and
Chaiken, (1993) job satisfaction is basically an employees attitude toward his or her job.
Employees who have job satisfaction, which are a minority of the workforce are
expecting their job to challenge them, and allow them to advance and move up within an
organization. There are several attributes that employees displays with job satisfaction,
which are less absenteeism, positive attitude, teamwork, produce better quality of work
and interpersonal relations are developed. The attributes described above are the results
of a healthy and safe work environment, good benefits, competitive salaries, and
promotional opportunities. An organization that can offer an employee these attributes
will always have a loyal and dedicated employee that has job satisfaction.
Organizational socialization has continued to have a direct impact on job
satisfaction of employees, which contributes to increased productivity in the workplace.
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As new employees are hire organizational socialization explains needed behaviors and
social skills to successfully acclimate themselves in an organizational culture as a
productive member. Generally, organizational socialization provides a framework of
how mutual reliance, work ethics, and information sharing are critical elements of an
organization. There are two levels that are affected directly by organizational
socialization, which are the organization and individual levels. At the organization level
it provides a consistent unchanging environment, and at the individual level it provides
new talents, different perspectives, and new ideas to an organization. As employees
come and go the socialization process is maintain which creates an environment of
history, principles and values. As employees assume their organizational role within the
organization they are able to contribute to the socialization of new employees.

Companies depend on their workers to get the job done and be productive
therefore; having organizational commitment within the workforce is essential to owners
and management. There are many ways in which a company can show interest and
loyalty to an employee such as family friendly benefits, flexible spending accounts, child
care, elder care referrals, part-time work options, and on-site day care facilities. Some of
these benefits provide job satisfaction to employees who view their time as more valuable
than money. Other benefits can include health and fitness programs, wellness programs
for the employee and their family, counseling services and a variety of on-site facilities
that can alleviate time stressors for the employee.
Google is a prime example of how their organization provides these services to
their employees to positively impact job satisfaction. They offer free massages, multi-
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cultural cuisines, a pet park, recreation center, gym, outdoor activities, and even laundry
services. Not only do these motivational benefits appeal to the workers, there are
cognitive benefits that appeal to all employees as well. All employees are encouraged to
find new ideas and ways that the company can run fluently. If a new employee or veteran
employee has a new idea, it is voted on by their peers and if enough employees agree
then that idea can be implemented by the employee who came up with the idea.
(lifeatgoogle.com) This is an example of the cognitive theory which states employees
make judgments about how fairly they are being treated, choose where they will direct
their efforts, and are able to anticipate future rewards associated with different levels of
goal accomplishment. (Jex & Britt 2008.)
Organizations generally want to keep hard working employees satisfied because
of the high level of employee contentedness. Employee satisfaction is essential to the
success of any organization therefore; keeping employees satisfied should be a priority of
the employer. High turnover ratios because of the economic downturn are an expense
that can be avoided through organizational commitment. We have discussed many
reasons why an employee can feel discouraged at work and resign including stress, lack
of recognition, limited growth potential, and even employee perception of the company.
Through proper implementation of organization commitment, companies can keep
employees employed and satisfied.


References

http://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/working-at-google.html

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Jex, S. M., & Britt, T.W. (2008). Organizational Psychology; A scientist-
practitioner approach (2
nd
ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Son and other credible
sources.